| Description | Forty-seven bound or formerly bound volumes used as sketchbooks. The numbering of sketchbooks correlates with that of Freud's estate, where they originated from. Volumes forty-six and forty-eight, were not included in this acquisition.
Overall content include still life and life subjects and portraiture, executed in charcoal, pastel, graphite, and pen and ink. Most often Freud uses a conte pencils for his sketches. Many sketches before known artworks are included and are identified at file and item level.
The suppliers Freud acquired sketchbooks from include: Lechertier Barbe Ltd, Green & Stone, Windsor & Newton, Daler-Rowney, of London, Sennelier, of Paris, and most notably, volumes 7, 15, 16, 18, 21, 29, 30, and 32 were sourced from an historical supplier based in Venice: Legatoria Piazzesi, a bookbindery specialising in hand made paper.
Dates attributed to the volumes are not intended as definitive. Broad time-frames have been derived from periods the sketchbooks may have been acquired, and also when Freud may have populated them in respect to identified subject matter or studies before known artworks.
All populated folios are described, which include original sketches, as well as offprints of present or absent sketches, and otherwise annotations. An indication of arrangement is described at file level by accounting the sequence of populated, blank and removed or absent folios. Where original sketches are no longer adjacent to their respective offprints, their location in another part of the volume is given, or otherwise described as absent. Instances of loose folios, which have not originated from the volumes they are found in are identified in each case.
Freud populated the sketchbooks with no obvious consideration to consistent sequence nor orientation. The orientation of each sketch has been recorded in the descriptions, yet the digital images attached to the catalogue have been rotated according to facilitate interpretation. Physical characteristics, paper type, condition and dimensions are recorded in each volume and unique cases at item level.
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